THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



637 



at war, not, against the other foreigners. 



The creek Iritiri at the mills is only a few 

 yards wide ; it winds about between two 

 lofty walls of forest for some distance, then 

 becomes much broader, and finally joins the 

 Magoary. There are many other ramifica- 

 tions, creeks or channels, which lead to re- 

 tired hamiets and scattered houses, inhabited 

 by people of mixed white, Indian, and negro 

 descent. Many of them did business with 

 Mr. Leavens, bringing tor sale their little 

 liar vests of rice or a few logs of timber. It 

 was interesting to see them in their little 

 heavily - laden montarias. Sometimes the 

 boats were managed by handsome, healthy 

 young lads, loosely clad in straw hat, white 

 shirt, and dark blue trousers turned up to 

 the knee. They steered, paddled, and man- 

 aged the varejaO (the boating pole) with much 

 grace and dexterity. 



We made many excursions down the Iritiri, 

 and saw much of these creeks ; besides, our 

 second visit to the mills was by water. The 

 Magoary is a magnificent channel ; the differ- 

 ent branches form quite a labyrinth, and the 

 land is everywhere of little elevation. All 

 these smaller rivers throughout the Para es- 

 tuary are of the nature of creeks. The land 

 is so level that the short local rivers have no 

 sources and downward currents, like rivers 

 as we generally understand them. They 

 serve the purpose of diuining the Ir.iid, but 

 instead of having a constant current one way, 

 they have a regular ebb and flow with the 

 tide. The natives call them, in the Tupi 

 language, Igarapes, or canoe-paths. The 

 igarapes and faros or channels, which are in- 

 finite in number in this great river delta, are 

 characteristic of the country. The land is 

 everywhere covered with impenetrable for- 

 ests ; the houses and villages are all on the 

 waterside, and nearly all communication is 

 by water. This semi-aquatic life of the 

 people is one of the most interesting features 

 of the country. For short excursions, and 

 for fishing in still waters, a small boat, called 

 montaiia, is universally used. It is made cf 

 five planks ; a broad one for the bottom, 

 bent into the proper shape by the action of 

 heat, two narrow ones for the sides, and two 

 small triangular pieces for stem and stern. 

 It has no rudder ; the paddle serves for both 

 steering and propelling. The montaria takes 

 here the place of the horse, mule, or camel 

 of other regions. Besides one or more mon- 

 tarias, almost every family has a larger canoe, 

 called Igarite. This is fitted with two 

 masts, a rudder, and keel, and has an arched 

 awning or cabin near the stern, made of a 

 framework of tough lianas, thatched with 

 palm-leaves. In the igarite they will cross 

 stormy rivers fifteen or twenty miles broad. 

 The natives are all boat-buildert?. It is often 

 remai ked, by white residents, that an Indian 

 is a carpenter and shipwright by intuition. 

 It is astonishing to see in what crazy vessels 

 these people will risk themselves. I have 

 seen Indians cross rivers in a leaky montaria, 

 when it required the nicest equilibrium to 

 keep the leak just above water ; a movement 



of a hair's breadth would send allfo the bot- 

 tom, but they managed to cross in safety. 

 They are especially careful when they have 

 strangers under their charge, and it is the 

 custom of Brazilian and Portuguese travel- 

 lers to leave the whole management to them. 

 When they are alone, they aie more reck- 

 less, and often have to swim for their lives. 

 If a squall overtakes them as they are cios^ 

 ing in a heavily-laden canoe, they all jump 

 overboard and swim about until the het.vy 

 sea subsides, when they re-embark. 



A few words on the aboriginal population 

 of the Para estuary will here not be out of 

 place. The banks of the Para were origin- 

 ally inhabited by a number of distinct tribes, 

 who, in their habits, resembled very much 

 the natives of the sea-coast from Maranham 

 to Bahia. It is related that one large tribe, 

 the Tupinambas, migrated from Peinambuco 

 to the Amazons. One fact seems to be well 

 established, namely, that all the coast tribes 

 were far more advanced in civilization, and 

 milder in their manners, than the savages 

 who inhabited the interior lands of Brazil. 

 They were settled in villages, and addicted 

 to agriculture. They navigated the rivers in 

 large canoes, called ubas, made of immense 

 hoilowed-out tree trunks ; in these they used 

 to go on war expeditions, carrying in the 

 prows their trophies and calabash rattles, 

 whose clatter was meant to intimidate their 

 enemies. They were gentle in disposition, 

 and received the early Portuguese settlers 

 with great friendliness. The inland savages, 

 on the other hand, led a wandering life, as 

 they do at the present time, only coming 

 down occasionally to rob the plantations of 

 the coast tribes, who always entertained the 

 greatest enmity toward them. 



The original Indian tribes of the district 

 are now either civilized or have amalgamated 

 with the white and negro immigrants. Their 

 distinguished tribal names have long been 

 forgotten, and the race bears now the gen- 

 eral appellation of Tapuyo, which seems to 

 be one of the names of the ancient Tupinam- 

 bas. The Indians of the interior, still re- 

 maining in the savage state, are called by the 

 Brazilians Indios, or Gentios (Heathens). All 

 the semi- civilized Tapuyos of the villages, 

 and in fact the inhabitants of retired places 

 generally, speak the Lingoa gera], a language 

 adapted by the Jesuit missionaries from the 

 original idbin of the Tupinambas. The lan- 

 guage of the Guaranis, a nation living on tha 

 banks of the Paraguay, is a dialect of it, and 

 hence it is called by philologists the Tupi- 

 Guarani language ; printed grammars of it 

 are always on sale at the shops of the Para 

 booksellers. The fact of one language hav- 

 ing been spoken over so wide an extent of 

 country as that from the Amazons to Para- 

 guay, is quite an isolated one in this country, 

 and points to considerable migrations of the . 

 Indian tribes in former times. At present 

 the languages spoken by neighboring tribe* 

 on the banks of the interior rivers are totally 

 distinct ; on the Jurua, even scattered hordet 



